The Gossips of Rivertown

Friday, August 16, 2024

Unintended Consequences . . . or Not

On June 11, Bill Huston, familiar to many from his appearances at Common Council meetings and his comments on this blog, published a post on his own blog, HUDseen, sounding the alarm about a washed-out section of trail at Oakdale--on the path leading to Spring Street. The post was called "At Least the Trail Isn't Completely Washed Out (for Now)." Here's an excerpt from the post.

That post had an update, which is reproduced below.

Once Huston discovered National Grid owned the land, it seems he directed his complaints to the multinational utility. Although, it appears, based on his post, his expectation was that National Grid would repair the washout, this is what actually happened.

Photo: Verity Smith

The Pitfalls of Parking Policy

While the imminent introduction of paid parking on the blocks of Warren Street currently without parking meters is a cause for concern among many, another change in Hudson parking policy has riled a different group of people.

In May, the Common Council passed a resolution to phase out parking permits for the South Front Street Municipal Parking Lot, the lot across the street from the train station used by people commuting by train to New York City and elsewhere. The City has been issuing long-term parking permits for this lot since about 2011. For an annual fee, which most recently was $1,000, permit holders could park in the lot whenever they wanted and for as long as they wanted without having to pay any additional fees. There were spaces in the parking lot designated for permit holders.

The decision to do away with the parking permits was a response to a variety of problems. There are 72 spaces reserved for permit holders, but as of January 2024, 99 parking permits had been issued. Although the permit application, the permit itself, the City website, and signage at the parking lot all indicate that "The purchase of a permit does not guarantee a spot; it is subject to availability," if a reserved space wasn't available, people with parking permits would park anywhere in the lot, with the expectation that they could do so for free, and then would protest when they were ticketed.

There were also problems with non-permit holders parking in the reserved spots and instances of permit holders altering the expiration date on their permits to avoid paying the renewal fee. Another thing that persuaded the Common Council to do away with the permits was loss of revenue. The $1,000 annual permit fee worked out to a mere $2.74 a day. Given all those issues, it was decided the simplest thing would be to eliminate parking permits for that lot altogether.

But the decision has not been without controversy. At Monday's informal Common Council meeting, Sarton Weintaub, attending the meeting virtually, protested the elimination of parking permits. He maintained that what had been costing him $1,000 a year would now cost him more than $3,000, and he complained that the people affected by the decision had been denied a voice. (Many of the people using the lot are not Hudson residents.) He told the Council there were a hundred people organizing to protest their decision. He also predicted that Hudson would ultimately lose revenue from commuter parking because people would be driving to Poughkeepsie to catch the train there instead of coming to Hudson. He said of the parking permits, "It was a service that was reasonably priced, and now you're taking it away."

Thursday, August 15, 2024

Of Interest

Chronogram has an article about the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse, on the occasion of its 150th anniversary: "The Past, Present, and Future of the Hudson-Athens Lighthouse."

Photo: David Oliver

Community Preservation or Overreach?

In Season 1, Episode 6, of Parks and Recreation, city planner Mark Brendanawicz shares this with Leslie Knope, deputy director of the Parks Department:

You know honestly, when I went to college, and I studied city planning, I thought I was gonna get a chance to build these perfect cities, with public transportation and downtown pedestrian areas, with beautiful landscaping, and all I ever get a chance to do is regulate the size of people's garage additions.

You get that same sense of disparity between expectation and reality with some of the current members of the Planning Board.

It will be remembered that, at the July meeting of the Planning Board, the findings and recommendations of a subcommittee made up of Ben Forman, Gini Casasco, and Susan Foster and tasked with doing further study of the apartment building proposed for Fairview Avenue between Oakwood and Parkwood boulevards, were discussed. The recommendations were presented again at the Planning Board meeting this past Tuesday. As outlined by Forman at the meeting, there are three:

The number of units in the building will be reduced from 30 to 15 market rate apartments, at least 5 of which will have three bedrooms.
There will be 26 offstreet parking spaces: one assigned to each of the 15 apartments; 6 assigned to workers in the commercial space; and 5 designated for visitors.
The project will provide ADA compliant sidewalks and crosswalks at Parkwood and Oakwood and along Fairview Avenue to reach Aldi's.

Forman offered a fourth item that didn't seem to be a recommendation so much as it was an ultimatum--at least, that's what it sounded like. He said, "The Planning Board is really steadfast in seeing the need for these requests, and if they are not met it would result in possible __." The last word in that sentence was not clear. It sounded like separation, but that doesn't make sense in the context. I have listened to the video multiple times and can't figure out what he said. Efforts to find out from people who attended the meeting in person have yielded nothing. I invite readers to listen for themselves. The video of the meeting can be found here. The statement in question begins at 17:30. But whatever the precise language of Forman's statement, it seemed the message to the applicant was: Comply with our requests, or risk being denied site plan approval.

[UPDATE: A reader suggested Forman's statement ended with the words positive declaration. That makes sense. A positive declaration in SEQR (State Environmental Quality Review) is a determination that the project would have a significant adverse impact on the environment and an environmental impact statement is required.]

After some discussion, the members of the Planning Board agreed on the recommendations/conditions and voted to send the statement to the applicant.

In justifying the request to reduce the number units by half, the Planning Board is relying on Section 325-18. C (2) of the city code, which states:

Density shall be determined by applying the area and use dimensions, set forth in the Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations, to the net parcel size. As a result of features unique to a parcel or lot, the Planning Board may, through site plan or subdivision review, reduce density below the density otherwise permissible according to the application of the Schedule of Bulk and Area regulations to the net parcel size, as the Planning Board deems necessary to protect the public health, safety and welfare.

The reference to the Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations brings to mind something that happened back in 2013, when Cheryl Roberts, serving as legal counsel to what was then the Planning Commission, misinterpreted the Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations and declared that dwelling units in R-4 districts had to be a minimum of 1,500 square feet. The project being proposed at that time would have had five one-bedroom apartments that were each about 770 square feet. In fact, the 1,500 square foot requirement related not to interior space but to lot size, but, based on Roberts' interpretation, the Planning Board denied site plan approval

The Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations doesn't provide much guidance in the situation now before the Planning Board. The site of the proposed building is made up of six parcels being merged together. Three of them--117 Fairview Avenue, 119 Fairview Avenue, and 121 Fairview Avenue--are in the General Commercial (G-C) zoning district. Those three parcels total 0.46 acre. The other three parcels--1 Oakwood Boulevard, 2 Parkwood Boulevard, and 4 Parkwood Boulevard--are in an R-2 residential district. Those three parcels total 0.21 acre. The Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations for Residential Districts specifies, for R-2 districts, one offstreet parking space per dwelling unit but makes no requirement for "usable open space per dwelling unit." The Schedule of Bulk and Area Regulations for Commercial and Industrial Districts doesn't address requirements for dwelling units at all. It should be remembered that less than a third of the proposed site is in the R-2 district.

A document prepared by the Planning Board subcommittee makes this argument:

As a whole, the density of the proposed building is of concern to the Subcommittee given the effects it would have on traffic affecting the health, safety, and welfare of the community. Furthermore, the most recent iteration of the Project shows that the merged lots have a combined area of 0.54 acres. Three of the lots are in the R-2 Zoning District, which does not permit multi-family dwellings, but allows 18.15 units per acre. The Applicant's proposal is significantly denser than the surrounding zoning of the adjacent and underlying R-2 Zoning District. Since the R-2 Zoning was the intended zoning of three of the lots, this comparison may be considered by the Planning Board to evaluate potential impacts to community character.

Gossips' calculation of the site, based on the information provided in the tax assessment rolls, is that the six parcels total 0.67 acre.

The subcommittee's argument for reducing the number of units in the building by half is summarized in this statement:

A reduced size would better fit the neighborhood's character and pose less threats to public safety and health given the reduced population.

It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. One thing to remember: This project had been before the Planning Board for close to a year before it was decided that a subcommittee needed to be created to give the project further study.

Wednesday, August 14, 2024

Of Interest

For Gossips readers not on Facebook, the Hudson Police Department posted this recruitment appeal on Facebook today. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

For those who might be interested in the opportunity, SeeThroughNY indicates that in 2023 eight of the nine of highest paid City of Hudson employees--those earning more than $100,000 a year--were members of the Hudson Police Department.

The Time Has Come

Off and on for years now, some members of the Common Council have seen the lack of parking meters on Warren Street below Third Street as lost revenue, while others opposed adding meters on those blocks because most of the buildings are residential buildings. It seems, however, that, on the recommendation of the parking study completed in November 2022, the days of free parking on Warren Street below Third are coming to an end. But the City won't be installing parking meters. Instead they will be implementing a mobile pay system with pay stations, or kiosks.

At the informal Common Council meeting on Monday, a resolution was introduced authorizing the acquisition of sixteen pay stations (kiosks) for making payments for parking. The sixteen pay stations will be installed in municipal lots, including the lot across the street from the train station, as well as on the currently unmetered sections of Warren Street (below Third Street and presumably also above Eighth Street) and on Front Street.

Exactly when this plan will go into effect is not clear. A representative of the supplier (T2 Systems) indicated at the Council meeting that it would take four to six weeks to get the kiosks and software up and running, but it is unclear what the starting point is for that time frame.

Tuesday, August 13, 2024

Don't Go Near the Water!

The following announcement was released by City Hall today. The announcement appears on the City of Hudson website, but the author of the announcement is not known.

Oakdale Lake in the city of Hudson, NY, is closed to all water-related activities until further notice due to recent signs of harmful algal blooms (HAB) that can cause illnesses in both humans & pets.

What appears as paint splattered floating on the surface of the water can be a type of blue-green algae such as cyanobacteria. We keep an eye out for these signs, especially because of our multi-year study on the water quality at Oakdale, but have not seen this affect our lake in years past. Recent environmental conditions were ideal for this to occur. We just experienced the hottest month on record, followed by heavy rainstorms, which causes lots of fertilizer run-off from lawns, which then flows into the lake, which is the perfect recipe for HABs. This is usually the time of year when the most HABs are seen in this region.

Avoid skin contact, inhalation, and ingestion with the lake water. Symptoms could include itchy or irritated skin, difficulty breathing, allergic reactions, diarrhea, nausea or vomiting. Wash off immediately with soap and clean water. This goes for dogs as well which sometimes can be fatal for our fur friends. Out of an abundance of precaution we are informing the public to avoid contact with the lake until we and the water have more clarity on the matter and get results back from testing.

No swimming, fishing, or boating. Keep dogs away. Water is unsafe.

Save Our Bridge

As Gossips reported last week, controversy is brewing in Stuyvesant over the proposal to replace the historic Stuyvesant Falls Bridge.

Photo: Trixie's List

On Thursday, August 8, there was a public information meeting, conducted by the Columbia County Department of Public Works, about the plans to replace the historic bridge with something opponents have described as "an ugly piece of concrete." An account of that meeting appeared in the Register-Star on August 10: "Stuyvesant residents speak out over Kinderhook Creek bridge replacement." Another account of the meeting appears on the website HistoricStuyvesant.org. That account is quoted here:

On August 8th, 2024, the Columba County Department of Public Works presented a poorly conceived plan to replace the historic single-lane bridge with a large two-lane design that does not suit the context or the needs of our community. There are critical problems with both the design scheme and project work plan that need to be addressed.

The proposed replacement is guaranteed to increase vehicle speeds on Route 25A. We want a SAFE plan that provides accessibility for emergency vehicles, while maintaining low vehicle speeds and safe conditions for pedestrians and cyclists. We deserve a plan that protects everyone and fosters the friendly rural charm cherished by Columbia County residents.

The residents of Stuyvesant are broadly calling for a halt in the consulting engineers' work and the implementation of a community-based bridge design process. We need County and State officials to give serious consideration to alternatives, including bridge repair and rehabilitation. The current process should be paused and replaced with an approach that gives the community adequate agency in decision-making about the future of our bridge.

Photo: HistoricBridges.org

This Saturday, August 17, Stuyvesant residents and advocates for the preservation of the iconic bridge are planning a Save Our Bridge Rally and Walk. The event begins at 10 a.m. Participants are asked to gather at Sandbar Park off Lindenwald Avenue in Stuyvesant Falls.

Image: Google Maps

Monday, August 12, 2024

Historic Sloops at Waterfront Wednesdays

The beloved Hudson River sloop Clearwater will be at Waterfront Wednesdays this week and next, each week offering, at 5:45 p.m., a free two-hour sail.

On Wednesday, August 28, the historic racing sloop Eleanor will be at Waterfront Wednesdays.

Waterfront Wednesdays happens every Wednesday, from 5:00 p.m. until dusk, at Henry Hudson Riverfront Park. This week marks the sixth installment of Waterfront Wednesdays in the event's eight-week run.

An Opportunity to Volunteer

Since 2017, FeedHV has been working to direct excess food from generous donors to food assistance agencies that serve those in need. The organization is currently looking for volunteer drivers to continue to expand their reach throughout the Hudson Valley.

Administered by Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corporation (HVADC) and operating in seven counties in New York State (Dutchess, Columbia, Greene, Orange, Putnam, Sullivan, and Ulster), FeedHV is the Hudson Valley’s food rescue and harvesting network dedicated to meeting the needs of neighbors while mitigating the impacts of food waste. In this year alone, FeedHV has saved more than 65,000 pounds of food that would have otherwise gone to waste.

The FeedHV community food network includes more than 300 volunteers, approximately 130 donor organizations, and more than 100 receiving agencies. Donors range from restaurants, farms, and food makers to caterers, event venues, and educational institutions.

This summer, FeedHV is securing an increasing amount of donations and needs additional help. FeedHV volunteers are essential to reducing food waste and insecurity in the region. The volunteer crew transports food donations to recipient agencies on their own schedule, enabled by the ChowMatch app, which matches food donors with food assistance programs. All individuals aged 18 and over with reliable transportation and auto insurance can volunteer with FeedHV.

To learn more about FeedHV and its volunteer programs, visit www.feedhv.org. To sign up as a volunteer, visit tinyurl.com/feedhvvolunteer.

In addition to volunteer drivers, the organization is also seeking food donors and food recipients in the Hudson Valley region. To become a food donor, visit tinyurl.com/feedhvdonor. To sign up as a food recipient, visit tinyurl.com/feedhvrecipient. To make a monetary donation to FeedHV, visit www.feedhv.org/donate-today.

Sunday, August 11, 2024

Meetings and Events in the Week Ahead

The week ahead promises a mix of rain and sunny days and very few meetings.

On Monday, August 12, the Common Council holds its informal meeting at 6:00 p.m. Of interest so far on the agenda for the meeting is a resolution authorizing the mayor to enter into a five-year contract with PBF Hudson LLC (that's the Pocketbook Factory) to rent a portion of the gravel parking lot across the street from the Central Fire Station for $12,500 a year. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.

On Tuesday, August 13, the Planning Board meets at 6:30 p.m. The agenda for the meeting includes several things that have been before the Planning Board for a while now: the plan for a subdivision on Hudson Avenue; the new location for Lil' Deb's Oasis; the apartment building proposed for Fairview Avenue between Parkwood and Oakwood boulevards; and Mill Street Lofts. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Zoom. Click here to join the meeting remotely.
On Wednesday, August 14, the Housing Trust Fund board meets at 5:30 p.m. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link for join the meeting remotely.
On Saturday, August 17, the Jacob Leisler Institute's exhibition Becoming a New People: New Netherland Under British Rule: 1664-1773 opens at Circle 46 Gallery, 46 Green Street, with a reception from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. After the opening on Saturday, the exhibition will be available to the public Thursdays through Saturdays, or by appointment, through September 29.

More News from the HPC Meeting

This is news Gossips has been waiting a long time to report. The Robert Taylor House now has an owner committed to its preservation, and plans for initial efforts to correct problems and arrest deterioration came before the Historic Preservation Commission on Friday morning.

The Robert Taylor House, constructed around 1790, is generally believed to be the oldest surviving house in Hudson. Up until about 2003, the house was occupied, but in that year it was damaged by fire, and since then it has been abandoned and vacant. Over the years, Gossips has written about the house many times--about its origins and architectural style, about proposals for the house, both appropriate and inappropriate, and about the neglect the house suffered in the years it was owned by Galvan. (Galvan acquired the house in 2011.) Fortunately, for the house and for Hudson's architectural history, the Robert Taylor House got a new owner in September 2023, a new owner who is determined to save it and restore it.

This past Friday, the architect Walter Chatham presented plans to "restore the physical fabric of the building." He explained that the house had been buried over time. According to local lore, there was a landslide in the 1930s that made the incline south of Allen Street steeper and rendered Deer Alley impassable for vehicles from midway between Cross Alley and the Second Street stairs. The earth dislocated by that landslide built up around the Robert Taylor House, making the house sit deeper in the ground than was intended. Similar but less dramatic incidents of erosion over the past ninety years have exacerbated the problem. As Chatham explained, "Brick that was never intended to be below grade is below grade," and water from the soil is wicking up through the bricks, causing serious deterioration. One of the first restoration measures to be undertaken will address this problem.

Chatham also told the Historic Preservation Commission that they wanted to re-create the shed dormers that were once on the back, or east side, of the house. Two dormers can be seen in these historic pictures of the house.

They also appear in this photograph taken by Gossips in 2010.

The shed dormers disappeared in 2014, when Galvan did a major reconstruction of the roof, work that was done without a certificate of appropriateness from Historic Preservation Commission or even a building permit from the Code Enforcement Office.

The picture below, taken minutes ago, shows the roof on the east side of the building as it is today, with the shed dormers missing.

The HPC has scheduled a public hearing on the proposed restoration of the Robert Taylor House for Friday, September 13, at 10:00 a.m.

Also on Friday, September 13, at 10:00 a.m., there will be a public hearing on the plans for the adaptive reuse of 601 Union Street, the Terry-Gillette mansion, which for decades was the Hudson Elks Lodge, as a boutique hotel. In February 2024, the HPC, after doing a preliminary review of the project, sent a letter of support for what was being proposed to the Planning Board. The Planning Board granted site plan approval to the project at its June meeting. Now the project is back with the HPC for a certificate of appropriateness.

Friday, August 9, 2024

First News from Today's HPC Meeting

This should bring joy to Bill Huston, whose comment on Gossips' "Ear to the Ground" post on July 30 was longer than the post itself.

This morning, an application came before the Historic Preservation Commission to remove the metal fence at 342 Warren Street and replace the current awning with a much smaller retractable awning. The building, of course, is the former W. H. Rogers Hose Company No. 2 firehouse, which for more than a decade was the location of American Glory.

The new awning proposed was described as "comparable to what's at Swoon," the restaurant next door.

The actions are intended, it was explained, to "free up the sidewalk." Regarding the awning, the HPC was told, "Our goal is to keep the awning closed most of the time . . . and open it when weather permits putting people on the sidewalk."

There is more of interest about this application. It was presented by someone attending the meeting virtually who was identified on screen as Robb Finn. Could this be the same Robb Finn who is/was the executive chef at Backbar across the street? Is this a clue about who will be operating the steak restaurant that, it is rumored, will be opening soon at 342 Warren Street? Time will tell.

How Much Administration Is Needed?

This morning, an entity called Hudson Deserves Better posted the organizational charts for the Hudson City School District from 2023 and 2024 on the Unfiltered Hudson NY Community Board Facebook page. Because I think the charts deserve wider attention, I reproduce them both here. The first is for 2023; the second for 2024. (Click on the images to enlarge.)

The changes in the two charts appear primarily in the tier of positions that report directly (and exclusively) to the Superintendent of Schools. Reading from left to right, the position of Coordinator for School Improvement in 2023 has been replaced in 2024 by Executive Director of Teaching and Learning. The person who holds the latter position was hired in May 2024. The press release announcing the hire was issued on June 4. It reads in part:

Dr. Elsa Kortright-Torres has been hired by the Hudson City School District as Executive Director of Teaching and Learning, bringing extensive experience as an elementary school bilingual classroom teacher, assistant principal, principal, and assistant superintendent, Hudson Superintendent Dr. Juliette Pennyman announced. . . .

The Hudson City School District Board of Education approved Dr. Kortright-Torres' hire during its May 21, 2024, meeting. She starts on July 1. . . .

Kortright-Torres will oversee three vital areas: the curriculum being taught; teaching methods and practices; and assessments. "I will lend a lot of support to students, families, and teachers," she said. "My job is to look at the instructional aspect of the school district and determine how we're supporting the priorities of the Superintendent and Board of Education, how we're in compliance with New York State Education Department expectations, and how we ensure students are successful." . . .

Two more positions that are new in 2024 to this tier on the organizational chart are Safety Coordinator, who reports to the Superintendent but to whom no one reports, and the Executive Director of Human Resources, to whom the Human Resources Staff reports. Another change is that the title Business Manager is now Chief Financial Officer.

Payroll information available on SeeThroughNY reveals that a number of the people holding positions in that tier on the organizational chart have salaries of more than $100,000 a year. Perhaps they all do. One wonders if all these administrative positions are really necessary in a school district with an enrollment of only about 1,500 students.

Thursday, August 8, 2024

A Study Long Overdue

At yesterday's meeting of the Hudson Industrial Development Agency (IDA), Mike Tucker, president and CEO of Columbia Economic Development Corporation (CEDC), who serves as an adviser to the IDA, told the members of the IDA about a study to be undertaken with Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress. The study, as Tucker explained it, will count the number of existing rental units in Hudson and the rent or level of affordability of those units, and it will also consider the number of units at various points "in the pipeline" and the income levels they target.

The proposed study is described as "a fresh look at the need for housing in the City of Hudson and the contents of the development pipeline that would bring new homes to the city. [It] would update socioeconomic and housing data for Hudson, examine current proposals before the city’s land-use boards, and understand the scope of proposals that are likely to be submitted soon." The purpose of the study is "to provide evidence-based recommendations that might help the City of Hudson continue to focus its policies and energy on housing proposals that would help to meet the needs of its current residents."

The intention is that the study will encourage balanced development in Hudson and prevent overbuilding of housing targeted at any particular income level.

Wednesday, August 7, 2024

On the Subject of STRs

STRs (short-term rentals) are usually cast as the boogeyman in discussions of the shortage of affordable housing in Hudson. Interestingly, Adam Bosch, president and CEO of Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress, dismissed the topic of STRs in his report to the Columbia County Housing Task Force last week, saying STRs served tourism, which was a significant sector of the economy in Columbia County, and noting that were the houses currently being used as STRs to come on the market, they would not be affordable to the segment of the population for whom homeownership is out of reach.

That being said, Hudson's short-term rental law, Section 325-28.3 of the city code, is on the agenda of tonight's Common Council Legal Committee meeting. In preparation for the meeting, Councilmember Margaret Morris (First Ward), who chairs the committee, submitted a number of questions about STRs in Hudson to Michelle Tullo, Housing Justice Director, who plays a role in monitoring STR compliance. Morris's questions and Tullo's answers can be found here.

The Legal Committee meeting takes place today at 6:00 p.m. The meeting is a hybrid, taking place in person at City Hall and on Microsoft Teams. Click here for the link to join the meeting remotely.

In the Fullness of Time

It's been twenty-two years since Richard Cohen pitched his idea of turning the buildings on the northeast corner of Warren and Fourth streets into a luxury hotel. That, of course, never happened, but during the decades Cohen tried to keep the fantasy alive, Hudson lost two historic buildings. In 2006, the building that stood at 406 Warren Street was demolished, without a certificate of appropriateness from the Historic Preservation Commission, because Cohen wanted the site cleared so he could construct the entrance to his proposed hotel there. In 2013, one of the three Greek Revival town houses along North Fourth Street was demolished. The reason for the demolition was given as "public safety," but the site of that building, too, figured into Cohen's fantasy hotel plans. There was to be a porte-cochere there, where cars could drive in to an interior loading area.

In 2021, the notion of converting the buildings into a hotel was revived by the buildings' new owner: the Galvan Foundation. This time, though, it wasn't being pitched as a luxury hotel but rather, in part, as "an 'artist's residence' for artists performing in Hudson" and "among the first minority developed, owned, and operated hospitality venues in the city of the Hudson."

Over the course of several months in late 2022 and early 2023, during the review by the Historic Preservation Commission, the design for the reproposed hotel evolved from something rather fanciful to something more respectful of the buildings' original architectural design.

The proposed hotel, to be known as Hudson Public, received site plan approval from the Planning Board in September 2022 and was granted a certificate of appropriateness by the Historic Preservation Commission in March 2023. Still, for more than a year, there has been no evidence that work on the project had begun. That changed recently.

This morning, a reader sent me these photographs.

Photos courtesy Win Jackson

Tuesday, August 6, 2024

Tomorrow at Waterfront Wednesday

Tomorrow, from 5:00 to 8:00 p.m., David McIntyre will photographing Hudson residents as part of Chronogram's Community Portrait series. All the portraits will appear in the September issue of Chronogram, and subjects will get a digital copy of their portrait when the magazine is launched. You can sign up in advance by clicking here, or you can just show up.

Housing and Change

Last week, Adam Bosch, president and CEO of Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress, presented his team's latest reports to the Columbia County Housing Task Force.

Bosch's presentation contained some interesting information. As is fairly well known, buying a house is out of reach for many in Columbia County, as in most parts of the country. According to Bosch, in Columbia County, there is a $200,000 gap between the cost of a house and what the average family can afford. Because of this, people are staying in rental housing longer, and that is pushing up the cost of rentals. Although rents keep going up, wages have flatlined. Bosch reported that rent has been outpacing wages 2 to 1.

Bosch also talked about the effects of in-migration and out-migration. He reported that the average household income for people moving into Columbia County is $166,107 while the average household income of those leaving the county is $68,812. This influx of wealth has raised the AMI (area median income), but the income of renters has not gone up.

Bosch encouraged zoning changes throughout the county to permit more dense housing in some areas but warned against allowing what happened in Orange County, where, he said, "every farm became a cul de sac." He also advocated for different types of homeownership—not just single-family homes on quarter-acre lots. Co-ops and condominiums were mentioned as possibilities.

Both reports can be found here.

Monday, August 5, 2024

The Tale of 432 Warren Street

Five years ago, 432 Warren Street was at risk of collapsing and leaving a tragically regrettable gap in the streetscape. Gossips included it as No. 4 in a series documenting at-risk buildings in Hudson called Nine Not to Ignore. This is what the building looked like then.

Photo: Zillow (2019)

Its loss would not have been without serious ramifications. It wasn't actually an independent building. It started out as one half of a single building. The picture below, taken after the Blizzard of 1888, shows 430 and 432 Warren Street as they were originally constructed to be.

Exactly when the building was divided into two buildings is not known, but for many years, probably close to two decades at the end of the 20th century and beginning of the 21st, it was part of Phil Gellert's notorious "Northern Empire." It was included in Gossips' "Gellert Gallery" in 2010. That post reported the building had been the scene of an attempted armed home invasion in October 2009.

Photo: The Gossips of Rivertown (2010)

In November 2020, the Historic Preservation Commission granted a certificate of appropriateness to the plans for the restoration of the building, which involved re-creating the storefront; adding a fourth floor, set back so it would not be visible from the street; and creating seven apartments in the building.

Soon after the certificate of appropriateness was granted, the new owners of the building raised some hackles by posting about the building and their plans for it on Instagram. The following is excerpted from one of their posts:

Have you ever seen an uglier building? Get ready to see it revived. This 8-unit project up in Hudson, New York, is about to kick into high gear. . . .

As you know, real estate is all about location and this eyesore is dead center on Warren Street--the main commercial corridor of this artsy little city that is a popular escape for New Yorkers. It's got great restaurants, a major antiques scene, and it's right on the Hudson River with a direct train to Penn Station. Hudson is enjoying a bit of a boom as so many are looking to work from more interesting places. . . .

The posts on Instagram provoked Michael Hofmann, before he became mayor's aide and was known only as the author of the Hudson Breathe Act, to send an email to the Common Council with the subject line: "This is gentrification. What are we doing about it?" In the email, Hofmann warns:

If left to their own devices, Duffy and Nierdo [the owners and Instagram posters] will convert this building into yet another set of unaffordable units, which are already being marketed to affluent escapees of New York City, to make as much money as they possibly can. This is not what Hudson is asking for.

Hofmann's entire email can be found here.

That was December 2020. Now, almost four years later, the restoration of the building is complete, and the ground floor retail space is being advertised on Zillow. The rent for the space is $5,000 a month.